The Ribble Weldtite team have had their fair share of problems in recent weeks, with Covid taking riders out of competition, as well as crashes, mechanicals, untimely punctures, bad luck and some poor tactics putting that big win out of reach. Ribble-Weldtite DS Colin Sturgess once again takes us behind the scenes to catch up with what the team have been doing since the Tour Series.
When I noticed that 19 years-old US Elite Criterium Champion, Luke Lamperti riding for the British continental team, Trinity Racing had won the Lincoln Grand Prix, I thought; ‘he’d be an interesting man to talk to.’ It took a few days; he had to drive through the night after his Stranraer win to catch his flight home to California where he lives in Sebastopol, a city in Sonoma County, north of San Francisco in the heart of ‘the wine country.’
Criteriums, a man of my acquaintance describes criteriums thus; ‘a bunch of guys turn up, they ride round in circles for an hour, one of ‘em wins then everyone goes home.’ Very true, but a night hanging over the barriers in Galashiels, a nice borders town under the spring sunshine with your amigos whilst catching up with old friends sure beats watching the soap operas.
The thing with riders like JLT Condor's Graham Briggs is that they are very good at what they do, training specifically for these one hour efforts and riding bikes adapted to crit racing with high brackets – it’s hard for English road pros to beat them never mind Scottish riders used to slogging across the moors in wind and rain. But for a crit to be spectacular it needs to be gutter to gutter, handlebar to handlebar – the circuit used for this year's Edinburgh Tour Series event does not produce that kind of race. And like Willard says to the GI in the movie ‘Apocalypse Now !’ – ‘do you know who’s in charge here, soldier?’
The Giro was a wonderful race, no question; but whilst it's charging across Italy everything else gets ignored - like the Scottish Road Race Championship, for example. The winner was - unsurprisingly - Raleigh's Evan Oliphant. VeloVeritas caught up with the man from Wick a few days after the race...
Covid having put paid to her 2020, ‘End to End’ bid after her brave but ultimately unsuccessful 2019 attempt, Christina Mackenzie (Stirlingshire Bicycle Club) had to re-focus and made the CTT 12 Hour Championship her goal for the year. ‘Mission accomplished,’ winning by some 12 miles with a provisional 251.64 miles on a tough course in equally tough conditions.
Bonjour! Today was our first outing on the Tour parcours, in the mountains it’s sometimes difficult to get on to race route, because just as in the Highlands of Scotland, there aren’t that many roads. We set the satnav for Ambronay, which was 73 kilometres into the stage but within easy reach of the autoroute and guided by Brian Blessed’s foghorn voice slipped along a network of tiny roads into the village, after we’d paid our last toll charge.
It's fabulous being on Le Tour but it does involve hugely long days and there's always too much to do. With that in mind, to claw back a little time to get the pictures up to date, do the washing and get some proper sleep we decided to work a stage start then head for the digs.
British Cycling in the 80’s and 90's: televised Kellogg’s city centre criteriums, the Milk Race, the Nissan Tour of Ireland; and to go with Sue Ellen’s big hair and shoulder pads on the TV, those Campag Delta brakes – and then there were... Kirk Precision magnesium frames. Steve Sefton was that soldier…
Earlier this year, Od Designs' Steve Marsden was approached by Sandy Gilchrist, the Specialized Team mechanic and Ireland Track Team coach, to see if he could develop a better bike stand than was already commercially available. After discussing his requirements, Steve set-to and in short time had the basis of what Od Designs have named the "TrackStand".